unity-design team mailing list archive

[Chow Loong Jin <hyperair@xxxxxxxxxx>]

(Disclaimer: I'm not a Unity developer, nor am I involved in its design, so
please don't fault them for my opinions.)

On 29/01/2013 06:09, Chad Germann wrote:
>     Let’s face it People have yelled about Unity’s Vanishing global menu. And it
> seems to fall on Deaf or stubborn ears. So we need another fix because the
> option to let users let it keep showing is probably not in the cards and,
> purposed “fix” https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/682788  involves an
> inconsistent behavior.  And out right ignores the option users have been
> //Asking for//

Irrational yelling falling on deaf/stubborn ears is nothing new. When users ask
for behaviours that they're used to, rather than behaviours that are
intrinsically easier to use, with either weak or no empirical evidence to back
their arguments, the right course of action is naturally to ignore them.

>       So let’s approach this rationally People hate the vanishing menu due to
> the fact that //some applications that are menu intensive// pile on the fact
> that these applications are of the type that //people use to get work done//.
> For example IDE’s for programming (eg Anjunta), office applications (eg
> Libreoffice) and Media editing (eg GIMP) there are plenty of uncommon ones as
> well.

I think that these examples are rather poorly made.

 - For IDEs like Anjuta, your main mode of input is the keyboard, and if there
   are menu items you frequently use, then chances are that it would be faster
   to just use the HUD. Traversing menus each time to, say, compile your
   application, would be a serious blow to produtivity in my opinion.

 - For office applications like Libreoffice, I guess there's a balance between
   keyboard and mouse usage, but on the other hand, can you really do much work
   on these applications when they're not maximized? And even when it's not,
   it's really not that hard to move your mouse to the top of the screen. I
   really don't want to bring up Fitt's law again, but slamming your pointer to
   the top of the screen does seem a lot easier than trying to aim for a thin
   menubar.

 - For media editing (GIMP), the "Professionals" and "the enterprise" you talk
   about who are used to the application in question typically employ a more
   keyboard shortcut-heavy + mouse usage, so I doubt the menu is used much
   either. Let's also not forget that Mac OS is very popular for media editing,
   and they use a global menu, so it really isn't as bad as you claim it to be.

In contrast, the only use-case I've seen which is particularly annoying is when
attempting to use focus-follows-mouse with the appmenu.

>     I Propose that it is made possible to Blacklist these Menu intensive
> Programs from the Global menu. to give Professionals and the enterprise
> an environment that is usable for it's needs.

I think a global menu blacklist of sorts already exists somewhere. And if you
really don't want the global menu at all, just remove the indicator-appmenu package.

-- 
Kind regards,
Loong Jin

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